There is plenty of chemical proof of this thesis as here set forth. Men have from time immemorial put things "in their bellies to steal their brains away." The chemical substance known as ethyl alcohol has been an artificial basis of good fellowship the world over, as well as furnishing a very fair share of the tragedy, the misery and the humor of the world. This is because, when ingested in any amount, its absorption produces changes in the flow of thought, in the attitude toward life, in the mood, the emotions, the purposes, the conduct,--in a word, in character. One sees the austere man, when drunk, become ribald; the repressed, close-fisted become open-mouthed and open-hearted; the kindly, perhaps brutal; the controlled, uncontrolled. In the change of character it effects is the regret over its passing and the greatest reason for prohibition.
Alcohol causes several well-defined mental diseases as well as mere drunkenness. In Delirium Tremens there is an acute delirium, with confusion, excitement and auditory and visual hallucinations of all kinds. The latter symptom is so prominent as to give the reason for the popular name of the "snakes." In alcoholic hallucinosis the patient has delusions of persecution and hears voices accusing him of all kinds of wrong-doing. Very frequently, as all the medical writers note, these voices are "conscience exteriorized"; that is, the voices say of him just what he has been saying of himself in the struggle against drink.
Then there is Alcoholic Paranoia, a disease in which the main change is a delusion of jealousy directed against the mate, who is accused of infidelity. It is interesting that in the last two diseases the patient is "clear-headed"; memory and orientation are good; the patient speaks well and gives no gross signs of his trouble. As the effects of the alcohol wear away, the patient recovers,--i.e., his character returns to its normal.
It becomes necessary at this point to take up a reverse side of our study, namely, what is often called the influence of "mind over matter." Such cures of disease as seem to follow prayer and faith are cited; such incidents as the great strength of men under emotion or the disturbances of the body by ideas are listed as examples. This is not the place to discuss cures by faith. It suffices to say this: that in the first place most of such cures relate to hysteria, a disease we shall discuss later but which is characterized by symptoms that appear and disappear like magic. I have seen "cured" (and have "cured") such patients, affected with paralysis, deafness, dumbness, blindness, etc., with reasoning, electricity, bitter tonics, fake electrodes, hypnotism, and in one case by a forcible slap upon a prominent and naked part of the body. Hysteria has been the basis of many a saint's reputation and likewise has aided many a physician into affluence.
Nor is the effect of coincidence taken into account in estimating cures, whether by faith or by drugs. Many a physician has owed his start to the fact that he was called in on some obscure case just when the patient was on the turn towards recovery. He then receives the credit that belonged to Nature. Medical men understand this,--that many diseases are "self-limited" and pass through a cycle influenced but little by treatment. But faith curists do not so understand, and neither does the mass of people, so that neither one nor the other separates "post hoc" from "propter hoc." If the truth were told, most of the miracle and faith cures that are not of hysterical origin are due to coincidence. Faith curists report in detail their successes, but we have no statistics whatever of their failures.
